17 February 1942
Enemy surface fleets abandon pursuit of Lex & Yorktown
Java Sea
The main enemy force met 2 of my DD on ASW patrol and broke off, then ran into one of my tenders evacuating Balikpapan, shot it once, and broke off again. This would be the last I saw of them as out scoutplanes did not make contact. Are they still here and we just missed them? Yorktown's about halfway to the western escape route through Oosthaven. That's in range of the Betties/Nells, so I'd be relying on the Lex's aircraft and several land-based fighter squadrons to see them through. I could turn them around if the surface threat is gone and exit through the east. But he can move Betties into Kendari just as easily. On balance, I think going west is still safer. I'm ordering my medium bombers at Singapore to hit the Johore airbase to try to reduce the threat level.
To remind me of the air threat, he hit Semarang with a port attack, perhaps thinking the Yorktown would put in there. The strike cost him a Zero, a Nell, and 2 Betties, one of the Lexington's Buffalo's was shot down playing defense.
Philippines
USS Spearfish torpedoed and sank a PB that was on ASW patrol off northern Luzon. You hate to see it!
We've confirmed that one division of troops has been moved from Malaya to Luzon. So that's the big play, that extra division here probably breaks my back, then these armies rest for a bit and head to Malaya. These reinforced armies attacked today, knocking my fortification level down from 3 to 2, casualties were 900 to 700 favoring me. That's going to flip as the fort level decreases further. I'll be lucky to hold out another week at this rate.
Malaya
An enemy sub tried to enter the harbor and hit a mine.
The air battle was an absolute massacre today. With just one Hurricane shot down (killing a triple ace!), we got 11 Nates, 4 Zeroes, 17 medium bombers, and 10 light bombers. Flak is responsible for probably 3-5 of those. We managed to get about 10 planes into the fight at a time, which is still badly outnumbered (peak enemy fighters, 28 Zeroes and 25 Nates) but better than we've been able to do consistently. I'm still not sure how we're managing to avoid the fighters and get to the bombers so efficiently. It's happened even when the escort/bomber ratio is high. Hurricanes are much faster than Nates, faster than Oscars, but slower than Zeroes, so it's not speed.
Our bombers hit Singkawang, gambling on them not having fighter coverage with him using them so extensively for LRCAPs right now. We were right, but damage was minor.
Japan
USS Sturgeon torpedoed a cargo ship in the Korea-Japan gap. It's been a long time since I saw any traffic here, what I expect would be a hot spot. This ship is going to survive, sadly.
Coral Sea
The daily Oscar sweeps got off to an early lead, but we rallied and broke even, 3 dead Oscars and 3 dead P-40s.
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